A fantasy RTS game with deck-building elements, a brutal 30-player battle royale mode, and the ability to have tens of thousands of units fighting at once? Yes please. Warcana is looking like one of the most manic but unique RTS experiences of the year, and it's just locked in a release date that's only a few weeks away. The game's free Steam demo just got a big new update too, but if you want to give it a try, you haven't got too long to do so.
Warcana's on-screen action is beautifully chaotic, with enormous pixel art armies storming equally enormous bases. However, as with any RTS game, the chaos is yours to control, and in Warcana your unit spawns and base building are carried out by way of a five-card deck.
While there is a challenging single-player campaign, I'm intrigued to see how its online modes fare. There's a competitive horde mode, which is essentially a race to get the highest score versus other players. There's a Stream Sniper mode, in which you can "experience epic social moments as part of an online community playing against streamers". There's even a battle royale game mode, which pits 30 players against each other and has them fight it out until there's just one base left standing.
When you factor in the obscene amount of units Warcana can support - "up to 50,000", according to its new release date trailer below - then things are definitely going to get wild in those competitive multiplayer modes.
Luckily, the game's free demo is being updated today (Tuesday, July 23) to include battle royale, stream sniper, and custom deck-building, so you can try most of this out right now. You'll have to be speedy though, as the demo will end on Monday, July 29.
If you're sad about the demo ending so soon, then don't panic, because the full launch of the game is not far away at all. The Warcana release date has now been locked in for Thursday, August 15.
If you want to give the demo a go or wishlist the game, you can check out its Steam page here.
Warcana is definitely going to be one of the most distinctive strategy games around when it does arrive thanks to its ridiculous unit count and art style. In the meantime, check out some other incredible indie games that are worth your attention.
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